I told you all in my last gardening post that we are trying out mulch gardening after watching the film, Back to Eden.
Last week, I was all ready to buy some mulch to put a layer on top of our beds. I had been out front in our flower bed surveying the old mulch that we are going to remove to make room for new pretty mulch. This stuff has been here for several years and needed to go. The top layers were faded, old, and in large dried out chunks.
As the kids and I were digging out the old stuff, what I found underneath shocked me! It was beautiful dark, rich, decomposed and almost compost-like mulch, just like the kind I was hoping for.
Yippee! Free mulch!
The best part is that is was teeming with big beautiful earthworms. I put my free labor (kids) to work filling up buckets to put in our raised beds out back. Filling up buckets with dirt and compost is like a dream for my kids. 
They are happiest when covered in dirt. Within 30 minutes we had all of our Spring crops mulched and looking beautiful. We’ll see how the weeds respond.
While we were in this process, a tree trimming/mulching company showed up at our neighbor’s house across the street. My husband took the opportunity to go talk to the guy to see if he had any more mulch to spare. He said that the current stuff he had in his truck had too much brown matter and not enough green for what we were trying to do. He did take our number and said he would call us when he had a decent load. Yay! More free mulch! I think we are planning to either put that mulch in between our beds so we don’t have to mow there or put it in a pile out back so it can break down a bit more before we use it.
Fast forward to this week…
I had been reading. I get in trouble when I read too much. I start to second guess myself when I find contradicting information. Apparently, some people aren’t too big of fans of mulch gardening and putting wood in the dirt and compost because they say it robs the ground of nitrogen.
Huh? What? Oh great!
Just when we thought we had something figured out. We’ve been working on improving the quality of our soil this year in many ways. We added more compost to the beds. We put crushed up eggshells in with the plants we planted. We used hay and mulch to create a “covering” to protect the ground.
When we heard that we could possibly be robbing our ground of nitrogen we felt a bit defeated. My mother-in-law said she used to used to fertilize with blood meal. I know it sounds very weird and gross, but blood meal is essentially dried blood and is an excellent organic fertilizer high in nitrogen. It is also supposed to help keep animals away like deer and rabbits that like to eat all of our hard work.
We’re giving it a go and only time will tell how the soil and plants will respond. I remain hopeful, but we shall see.
A few things we discovered when researching using blood meal in the garden:
- Plants that will love this: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, spinach, brussel sprouts, lettuce
- Do not use with peas, beans and legumes.
- Do not put directly on the plant and not in excess. Too much can burn the plant. Apparently a little goes a long way.
- It is water soluble and can be used as a liquid fertilizer or I’ve seen people sprinkle it on the dirt and then water it. I don’t know if there’s one way that works better.
- Do not apply to seedlings.
- Yellowing leaves on plants can be a sign of nitrogen deficiency and may respond well to blood meal.
It’s all a learning process, isn’t it? Really, every year I learn something new. Some things don’t work, some do. It’s fun while in the process.
Ok, expert gardeners out there! Yes you! Have you used blood meal in your garden or the mulch gardening technique? Any success stories, failures or other information to share? Let’s talk in the comments below!
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After my 5th year in the same raised garden, I learned first hand exactly what mulch can do to your soil. I started using mulch 2 yrs ago and loved it~~ looks amazing and not a single week to pull. I started reading and reading because this last crop was stunted, had odd colored leaves and not producing enough flowers. I finally came across the problem in a book about how mulch robs the soil of nitrogen and to add blood meal. So I did and voila~~I was able to put food on the table. In preparation for this falls crop I am adding blood meal and well composted chicken manure to the old mulch and will till it in. I may add blood meal twice before planting since all it does is rain at this time of the year in Louisiana. Like they say…you gotta live and learn. If it works, I will continue to add mulch every season.
Thank you Tara for this article. In all the years I have been gardening mulching with wood chippings always resulted in stunted growth. Instead I use sometimes a thin layer of freshly cut grass or shredded green leaves, which disappears rapidly, pulled down by worms into the ground.
I dig out the paths of my vegetable plot to a spade deep and fill it with woody material, and let it break down for a year or two, then it can be added to
the borders apart from where I grow root vegetables like carrots or parsnips.
As for blood meal, I am experimenting to use a mixture of fish, blood and bone meal as lawn fertilizer instead of artificial chemicals and lawn weed killers. Blood meal does green up the grass but doesn’t make the turf grow very fast as artificial nitrogen would do. It works more in tandem with the soil organisms which benefits from the blood meal and improves the soil.
Artificial nitrogen bypasses living soil organisms and is detrimental to it: it makes the soil poorer.
I have loads of clover in the lawn; clover grows well when there is a lack of nitrogen. So I hope to at least bring the amount of clover to a manageable level by using blood meal. It also makes the soil more acid, which clover dislikes.
So in theory using blood meal on the lawn should solve the clover problem…..time will tell.
Best regards
Joe
It’ll rob nitrogen only temporarily. Plus unless you have really nitrogen loving plants, you’ll be fine. In any case you can always add manure on top of the mulch to off shoot any deficiencies.
Never fear, wood chips will only rob your soil of nitrogen if you till them in. If you had watched the entire BTE film, this was stressed by Paul. No dig, you JUST layer! Digging destroys the fungi mycelium and the bacteria that work on different levels, not to mention the earthworms and their tunnels that create pathways for the water to go to the deeper levels. The incredible soil underneath your old wood chips was the clue you should have followed
Cheers and good luck, I hope you worked it out 
Bruce
how fast will nitrogen robbing happen in vegetable plants like eggplant ?